Beijing Day 2 - Great Wall / Traffic / Qianhai

Got up and left Wangjing super early, Saturday morning rush hour with lots of luggage was not a good idea.  Should've asked the bf to take some stuff for me..  I checked into the Kings Joy Hostel near Qia'men station, it seemed nice enough although I only used it to store my bags.  The train to the great wall runs fairly regularly but Chinese inefficiency is apsolutely astounding.  You can't buy tickets before 11am (go the night before, upstairs window 8) and so according to the timetable the earliest train you can get is 12:42.  I met Andrew and Mark at the station and together we got a taxi to the wall.  First person we spoke to took us to an unmarked cab.  Dodgy, don't do it.  We agreed to 500rmb return (about 20 quid each).  It should've been an hour/90min each way, but Beijing traffic crept up on us and it ended up being closer to 6 hours.  Luckily the DC boys were fun to talk to, between naps.  At one point it took us a half hour to go 2km.  Crazy, don't do it!  If you'd taken the bus you would've been just as stuck.

The great wall was cool, winding its way up, down, around and through the huge mountains.  As with most of Beijing there were just too many people.  The Badaling section has been open to tourists for the longest time and there are 2 cable cars to either side with the main entrance in the middle.  You could take either up to the top and walk down to the middle, but we opted for walking up ourselves and then heading back.

After I got back I headed out to the embassy district to meet my second cser - Chad.  He was great fun, message him if you're going.  We walked round to a really nice, shiny, new area - more what I'd been expecting from China.  Had dinner with him and his two friends, before heading out to the Qianhai district - there were a whole load of bars, including the only strip club I saw there.  Finally we got a late bus back to the Chad's area - went the last km or two on the back of his bicycle - holding onto the back whilst sat on the bag part was certainly an exciting way to drunkenly head home!